Zero History reads like a Graham Greene novel penned by The Magnificent Bastard. This is the third entry in Gibson's Blue Ant cycle. His Bigend trope has all the pushes and pops of Zero History's contemporary at the cinema, Inception. Hubertus returns as the puppet master, linchpin, and advertising exec who simultaneously makes Don Draper look like a used car salesman and Saatchi and Saatchi like a mom-and-pop operation. Again Hollis Henry, whom we met in Spook Country, is squarely in his sights. Again she's anxious to get out. And again there's enough branding to make an Italian pro cyclist blush.

The black market produces enough materials to keep all of Dick Cheney's Facebook friends in gold-plated Bugatti Veyrons. However, the knockoffs lack the quality of the "real thing." Will the counterfeit goods ever meet or exceed genuine standards? Could these products become their own brand with their own logo? Would we buy these items for that quality or would we buy inferior products on the basis of brand recognition and reputation? Or better yet, if the military were to require these products, which side of this equation will be chosen for those astonishingly lucrative contracts?